4 WML coding questions

[Rubashov]

(I'm not sure if this should be here or in scenario development, sorry)

Great game. Played a few of the campaigns, thought I'd try and make one. I'd like to do some different events, but I'm having trouble coding them in WML. Any help would be appreciated.

1) How do I write an event so if a particular kind of unit (peasant) kills an enemy unit (for simplicity's sake, any kind of unit is okay), it immediately turns into another type of unit (e.g. Partisan). As far as I can figure from the Wiki, events trigger when the primary unit dies, but I don't see a trigger for when the primary unit kills something.

2) How can I make the "recruit=" tag conditional on unit type. For example, when "Bob the Main Character" is a level 1 "90 pound weakling" he can only recruit peasants, but when he advances to a "Football Quarterback" he can recruit peasants _and_ thugs.

3) I think I should use variables for the following situation, but I'm not sure how. Imagine: Bob's objective is to go to his girlfriend's house, pick her up, and get her and himself in the car before her Dad catches them. So, the victory condition is Bob getting in his Camaro--but before he does that, he has to open the door for Sally. In game terms, Sally appears mid-way through the scenario. Then both Bob and Sally have to reach the exit point to win. I'd like it to be Sally has to reach it first, then Bob.

4) I'm having trouble convincing my ai leaders to go and attack Bob. They tend to sit on their keep. Even worse, in a scenario where Bob and his friends have ranged weapons and the bad guys don't (Sally's Dad left the shotgun inside), the bad guy leader just sits there until killed with ranged attacks, and never actually attacks the units next to him, even though he has a far superior melee attack.

[Noyga]

1) use [filter_second] in a die event
2) you can check his type every turn and [allow_recruit] if necessary according to the unit type. For trunk you can also use an advance event.
3) set a variable to check if if Sally went first to the car
4) you can specify some parameters for the ai in the side definition ... See the AIWML page in the wikii.

[Rubashov]

1) use [filter_second] in a die event
2) you can check his type every turn and [allow_recruit] if necessary according to the unit type. For trunk you can also use an advance event.
3) set a variable to check if if Sally went first to the car
4) you can specify some parameters for the ai in the side definition ... See
the AIWML page in the wikii.

Thanks. I pretty much get the theory, but it's the implementation that I'm having trouble with.

1) I can filter the "die" event on a secondary unit, but then doesn't the effect still happen to the primary unit? And what is the code for transform (not advance) at unit to a different type? I haven't been able to find it on the wiki.

2) How would I do that? Would I set up a one-time per scenario event that triggers when the character is a certain type? If it triggers in scenario 1, and he can recuit them in scenario 1, do I have to redo the event in scenario 2 or will he still be able to recruit them?

3). Yes, well, "setting a variable check" is proving to be difficult. Do you know of a scenario where this sort of thing is done that I could copy from?

4) I've played around with the AI parameters, mostly making it aggressive. I'll keep doing so, I guess.

[Noyga]

1) yes the effect will still happen
To transform a unit you need to :
- use [store_unit] to store the unit in a variable
- then modify the unit by modifying the variable
- then use [unstore_unit] to apply the changes

2) in a turn event use an [if] with an [has_unit] matching the unit like this :

Code: Select all

[has_unit]
side=1
canrecruit=1
type=Football Quarterback
[/has_unit]

and apply the change with [allow_recruit] in the [then] part
3) there are some but i don't rember exactly which ones
Basicaly you do two moveto events
- one that matches Sally, in which you check a variable (previously initialised to 0) to 1
- one that matches Bob, in which you do nothing if the variable is set to 0. Do set firstimeonly=no for this one

[aelius]

Here's the code to transform a unit into a different type. It's pulled from The South Guard (specifically, /scenarios/7a.Into_The_Depths.cfg), and may be helpful. The WML documentation for this stuff isn't well organized (or so I think).

Code: Select all

	[store_unit]
		variable=unit_store
		kill=yes
		[filter]
			type=Peasant
		[/filter]
	[/store_unit]

[set_variable]
	name=unit_store.type
	value=Footpad
[/set_variable]

[unstore_unit]
	variable=unit_store
	find_vacant=yes
[/unstore_unit]

{CLEAR_VARIABLE unit_store}

[Rubashov]

Thanks a lot! I never imagined people would be this helpful this soon. I'll take these and see what I can do.

Thanks!!

[Emmanovi]

If the enemy leaders don't recruit, then remove or recheck their recruitment pattern. This can be the cause (and in my experience, often is).